Prosperous soul in the making

savingholmes

The second ppi cheque has cleared :j
So I've paid another £4.7K off CC5 (my car) Only £1.3K left to go on that now
£75 has also gone out today for CC1

Total cleared off debt this pay day period £8727 :money: - and I still have a couple of direct debits left to go out! A weight off my shoulders I can tell you. Hopefully next time I get a big windfall, I can use it for fun or towards my dream home...

savingholmes

So I've been listening to a whole series of books about £ and millionaires - very thought provoking. The average millionaire in America got there through their retirement fund and held jobs like teacher, nurse, construction worker, farmer etc... We too easily dream of winning the lottery but under-estimate the impact of simple steps we can take and the potential power of compound interest in our own favour once we kick debt into touch.

Listening to one about £m mindset - it struck me again that historically I have been good at giving but bad a receiving whether it was a compliment, a drink or something bigger. He says you have to practice learning to receive - as otherwise you stop getting gifts or you lose the benefit of gifts as you always feel you have to pass them on or get rid of them. Do you feel like that? I received a pen set once that was beautiful and had positive words on them. My first thought was that would make a great present for someone - it took me a couple of months to open the case and use one...

The other thing that struck me was that he said every time you get uptight inside or verbally at what you see as someone else's undeserved good fortune or perceived too high a salary - you are cutting yourself off from a similar blessing. That hit home as today alone I've had about 3 internal rants that I cut short about people I know who are over-paid for what they produce. I've tried to practice today speaking blessing over them instead of internally fuming. I also pushed through and submitted an appeal against my current grade - really hoping it goes in my favour. I am at the top of my grade - but if I went up in grade I would have increments again each year for up to 5 years which would help.

Another challenging thought was that we all have a financial income that we are comfortable with - to the extent that we will fight to get that value and potentially spend / lose / give away anything above that. He says we have unconscious £ thoughts that lead us into our boom and bust type cycles - I could see what he was saying from our own life. T0ny R0bb1ns says you get your musts but not your shoulds - you therefore need to set new standards and put in supporting rituals... That's partly what I'm trying to do here with this diary - set myself mini targets, hopefully have some accountability partners along the way and over time lift my standards ie to go from paying my bills on time to completely clearing CC and mortgage and moving onto investing - while having a healthy emergency fund in place.

What's happened this month with the PPI claim and other things seemed impossible until it happened... and was such a contrast to June which was probably one of the worst month's of our lives for reasons I can't go into on a public forum... Normally when the !!!! hits the fan - I over-spend - this time I consciously chose to do the opposite and this has been the result... an unbelievable amount of £ paid off in a short time. I decided to invert my normal coping mechanism of over-spending and decided to do my best to pay off the maximum amount of £ instead...

What habits / ways of thinking do you need to kick into touch to experience breakthrough in your life? What's worked for you before - where you could have reacted negatively but instead chose to turn it around and create some good out of a situation instead?

[Deleted User]

Lots of thoughtful insights there! I'm definitely one for commenting on others' undeserved good fortune (in my head) so that's something to work on!

jwil

Interesting, I think I definitely run on a boom and bust cycle! I need to start focussing properly and stop thinking I've got spare money when in reality I should be saving it for something that needs to be done.

Chrystal

I need to stop thinking that other people - including the kids - need it more than I do. I'm ending up shooting myself in the foot, and won't be able to go ahead with plans when I manage to sell the property we were left (It's been 3 years of paying out on it, and sales falling through!!) Definitely need to change my mindset.

savingholmes

I tried to do multi quote but couldn't get it to work. Thanks for commenting.

SSDD23 wrote: »

I'm definitely one for commenting on others' undeserved good fortune (in my head) so that's something to work on!

It's often rooted in jealousy isn't it. It is for me. I have to stop myself and remind myself that I could probably have x if I had different priorities / behaved differently

Jwil:"Interesting, I think I definitely run on a boom and bust cycle! I need to start focussing properly and stop thinking I've got spare money when in reality I should be saving it for something that needs to be done."

I do this a lot. Which is why I am trying to plan where every pound should go at the start of the month and then course correct almost daily at the moment...

Crystal"I need to stop thinking that other people - including the kids - need it more than I do. I'm ending up shooting myself in the foot, and won't be able to go ahead with plans when I manage to sell the property we were left (It's been 3 years of paying out on it, and sales falling through!!) Definitely need to change my mindset."

Yes - we are each already worthy. Boom and bust has to stop...

savingholmes

One of the other common threads in what I am listening to is where our focus goes - money flows. So although I am tracking debt repayments I am also tracking net worth. Your net worth is your assets minus things you owe. I have kept it simple and excluded my car - although if I added it in I think it could easily be worth £8K say. On top of that I have pension pots as does OH.

So if my house is worth £250K and I have a £145.4K mortgage on it and owe £30.1K currently that gives a figure of £250K - 175.5K = £74.5K

If I add in my current savings of £1.5K - my net worth rises to £76K etc... So my focus is not on debt so much as how to increase my net worth. Getting rid of debt is just a tool on that journey... How do you motivate yourself to keep going?

savingholmes

So another £89.87 went out on debt today to CC3 so my debt drops to 30024 roughly. I have one more payment to go out before payday which is due to take me below £30K. What is positive currently is that I am looking forward to getting the CC payments out as I see each one as taking me closer to freedom and increasing my net worth.

I was looking into the stuff on F1RE yesterday. One of the T3dtalks I listended to said it had allowed her to take mini retirements or sabbaticals. That sounded positive. I can't see myself stopping work altogether - I get a lot from working - I just want to have more freedom over when and where I work and how much I work. I think OH would have retired years ago if he could have - but spent his time gaming which I wouldn't find acceptable.

We recently upped the personal spends we gave ourselves from £50pcm to £100pcm (I was always going over mine anyway). He is now dreaming of what he could spend his money on from going to the gym to saving up and doing a motorbike trip along R0ut3 66. I am trying to work out what my equivalent might be - because it definitely isn't that... Perhaps going to a literary festival or spending a week or more writing my books in an exotic location...

We need to make sure we enjoy the journey of life and not always put off our true living until later

FloraandFauna

I liked the big think piece, Holmes. I remember reading somewhere that a huge per cent (like about 96%) of your personality was just habit. As in, you do what you do because it's what you do. The amount of conscious choice that goes into your likes and dislikes, reactions, impulses, friendships, choice of music/reading material/food, etc is pretty negligible.

Which makes sense, because if you had to examine, analyse, and then decide on every action and feeling from first base every day you'd never get past listening to the alarm clock. Many of these things need to be on autopilot to get stuff done.

But it does explain why even just observing what you're doing changes what you're doing. Add conscious direction to that and no wonder you're rolling! : )

DancingInTheRain

Very thought provoking post, you've got me thinking about lots of things (again ). Well done again on the fantastic July overpayments, how exciting that you're nearly in the 20's :j:j Sounds like the decluttering is having a really positive effect on you too. Here's to a successful August too :beer: x